Archive for April 8th, 2005

- 6:45 with the dogs. It’s like a fucking meat locker in our room. I let Captain Insecurity and the Brainless Wonder out, take a leak, and head to the computer to update the diary. I’m feeling kinda randy, but I don’t wanna wake Jen up, so I click open my Jen nudes and tug one out in my office at the desk. From there, it’s over to email.

- Jen’s got a doctor’s appointment at eleven, so after she makes Harley’s lunch and we see her off (Jen from downstairs, me from the upstairs balcony; she’s wearing pony-tails to school for a class trip to see a stage version of “Aladin” and looks adorable), Jen’s does the couch trip, the morning coffee, and is in the shower. I’m all over email and trying to sort out more “Clerks 2″/”Catch and Release” stuff.

- Get an email from JJ Abrams, who’s in for my guest-hosting episode of “Dinner for Five.” The final, locked five is JJ, Jason Lee, Stan Lee, Mark Hamill, and me. We shoot on Tuesday.

- Jen and I make a post-doctor’s lunch date (as well as a post-lunch fuck date), and she’s off. Feeling a little randy again at the thought of the post-lunch fuck date, I head back to my office, break open the Jen pics again, and jerk off anew.

- Off to the shower. I’ve got a noon meeting at the office with reps from the Director’s Guild. I dry off, get dressed, grab some gum, and head downstairs.

- Byron and Gail are off to Mammoth for the weekend, for a ski trip we’re sending Byron on for his birthday. We make arrangements to have Louis (the little Chocolate Lab Jen and I bought for Harley at Chay’s insistence on New Year’s Day that Byron has somehow inherited) shipped off to puppy camp (she’s still in the stage where she needs constant supervision, ‘lest she eat all Harley crayons and shit all over the house). I kiss ‘em both goodbye and then take the three minute drive down to the Sycamore office.

- There, Fern (from DGA East) and John (from DGA West) are already waiting with Smalls. I take them to my office and they chat me up about finally joining the DGA. I’ve been directing films for twelve years now, but I’ve never been a DGA member. It’s kinda flattering that they’re making the push to get me to join, because they feel that my inclusion sends a clear message to up-and-coming indie auteurs that the Guild is an essential part of any director’s balanced breakfast. They tell me I’m one of the last holdouts (Quentin being another; Robert’s been in and out of the Guild several times) and ask why I’ve never joined. I don’t really have a good answer beyond the fact that I couldn’t see the point in being part of another useless club. They maintain that, even though I’m deep enough in my career and have enough juice to not need Guild muscle behind me at the bargaining table, there are other benefits. They crack open a numbers sheet that makes it clear that if I’d been a Guild member since “Mallrats”, I’d have made close to a million dollars in residuals off of video sales. Also, by joining, the A.D’s and U.P.M.’s I work with get protected and residuals too, as well as an insanely top-notch health plan. I suddenly remember why I didn’t join years ago, and that’s because I never want to throw that “A Film By” credit in front of my name in the credit block. They say that, as a DGA member, it’s not mandatory at all (in fact, they try to limit the “Film By” credit so that it doesn’t lose its meaning, and save it for folks like Scorcese, Lynch, Lucas, Spielberg, etc.). They cap it all off by telling me not every director is invited to join (or even accepted into) the Guild, and that I’d be a good score, because I’m high profile, and if what it takes is an invitation letter from Guild President Michael Apted, then said letter will arrive next week. I say I’ll give it all a serious think, and thanks for coming in. Nice folks.

- Post-meeting, I pop into the editing room to see what Mosier’s been doing with the “Mallrats” re-cut. We’ve decided that, instead of calling this “The Director’s Cut” that we should call it “The Cut That Should Never Have Been” – as longer doesn’t mean better (certainly in the case of “Rats”). Afterwards, while I’m chit-chatting with Smalls, Jen calls. She’s home from the doctor’s and ready to grab some lunch.

- I swing up to the house, grab Schwalbach, and we head over to the Newsroom for lunch. The place is crowded, but we get a table and chow down: me on turkey meatloaf and chicken, Jen on some veggie soup and an artichoke. We talk about a bunch of stuff, including the Poetry Reading even we’re holding up at the house next weekend to benefit Harley’s school’s Fine Arts program.

- After lunch, we cross the street and go to Kitson’s, this chick store on Robertson. Jen picks up an “Award Winning Wife” t-shirt and an ashtray. Mos calls, and we talk about the “Rats” cut, and how we should perhaps deliver big chunks to Universal, as there’s a lot of post-work to do to get it presentable (they’ve gotta go back to the negative, re-mix the sound, extend music cues, create new music cues, etc.). Done shopping, Jen and I head cross town to pick up Harley from school.

- On the ride, Jen and I start talking sex, which evolves (or devolves) into dirty talk. I’m hard and she’s wet, but the kid gets out of school in two minutes. All hot and bothered, we decide that, when we get home, we’re gonna send Harley to watch some TV in her room for ten minutes while we go upstairs for a quickie.

- Jen goes in to get Harley, and we head to Wendy’s for some fries and chicken tenders for Jen and Harley respectively. We figure if the kid’s chowing down when we get home, she won’t notice the momentary absence of Mom and Dad. I get us home perhaps a little speedier than usual, and as we get out of the car, Jay greets us from the upstairs window. Beautiful: a built-in babysitter. I tell him to come downstairs and watch Harley for a few minutes so Jen and I can “talk.”

- With Harley safely in Jay’s care, Jen heads upstairs, and I take Louis out for a brief walk (something Byron usually does, but he’s on his way to Mammoth with Gail already). I put Louis outside with Scully and Mulder and head down to the bedroom, to discover the already naked Jennifer sprawled out on the bed. I lock the door, turn on the fuck-music (no, not “Moonlighting”, as Affleck’s suggested), and we go at it. Ten minutes in, the door phone rings. We freeze, taking a beat to decide to answer it or not, as it may be the puppy camp people coming to pick up Louis, and the door phone doesn’t ring in Harley’s room, where Jay currently is. We give in, and Jen answers the phone (the phone’s an intercom system, through which you can talk to people at the front door and buzz them in). Sure enough, it’s the puppy camp folks. She buzzes the guy in, and we briefly debate who should go downstairs. I point out that, while she’s wet, I’m hard, hence the more conspicuous of the two of us. Jen throws on a robe and races upstairs to get Louis. I call down to Mewes on the intercom and ask him to call for Louis downstairs and hand over the leash, the dog food, and the dog herself to the puppy camp pickup guy (so Jen doesn’t have to go all the way downstairs). At this point, Mewes has figured out we’re not “talking” and I hang up on his wink-wink, nudge-nudgey “Ohhhhh, shit!” Jen returns to the room, and we return to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

- A half hour later, we head downstairs to retrieve the kid. Amazingly, she’s asleep in her barn bed, and Jay’s lying in the trundle beside her, watching “Scooby Doo”. We turn the TV down and leave Harley to nap for a bit, thank Mewes for the coverage, and head back upstairs. Jen rides her couch, smoking and checking email, and I head into the office to return a call to Jenno re: “Catch”. Jen asks me to send out some thank you emails to folks who’ve agreed to do the Poetry Event, so I draft some missives to Anjelica Huston, Peter Coyote, Barbara Hershey and Ian McShane.

- Harley wakes up and joins us upstairs, and with Jay off to play poker at Commerce, we try to figure out what the three of us should do for dinner. Harley opts for some leftover lasagna while watching “Fat Albert”. I join Jen up in the kitchen and make a low-carb pizza while we talk about the Poetry Event. She’s stressing about it, trying to figure out if we’ve got enough booze and enough people coming to read, where the valet parkers are gonna put seventy to a hundred cars, etc. Tickets were $175.00, so she wants attendees to feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth. We’ve got two tickets left to sell, and we toy with the idea of putting them up for sale here on the board.

- When “Fat Albert” ends, we start putting Harley to bed on our couch. She fucking loves that “Fat Albert” flick – particularly the song. I tell her that Jay and I sang that “Fat Albert” song in a movie once, and Jen suggests I let Harley see it (minus the guns in the scene). I grab “Dogma” from the library and pop it in the DVD player, jumping right to the cut scene. The kid’s amazed (you’ve gotta impress them while you can, because kids grow up so fast these days, it won’t be long before she’s like “You’re a fucking jackass, Dad…”). When it’s over, Jen reads Harley some books while I collect some DVD options to bring upstairs for Jen and I to choose from. We kiss Harley goodnight, turn on the house alarm, leave Scully and Mulder to keep an eye on her, and head upstairs.

- Before we get into any DVD watching, Jen and I play a little Battle Tetris. While I’m whipping Schwalbach’s ass, Harley joins us, claiming she’s unable to sleep and tattling that Mulder’s up on the couch with her. Jen deftly talks the Quinnster into going back to sleep, so back down she goes.

- We decide on a movie: out of the pile of twenty, it all comes down to “Silverado.” We both rock our laptops while the movie plays on the big screen. About an hour in, Phil calls to talk about “Catch.” When we’re done, Jen and I opt out of the movie (she’s not into it, and I’ve seen it so many times already) and instead discuss the possibility of heading to Vancouver for three months, and what that means for the family (we travel in a pack) – particularly Harley’s school.

- Tired, we head downstairs and cuddle up while watching some TiVo’ed “Simpsons” until we both fall asleep.